Cyberknife Side Effects

Amx,

Are you absolutely sure that your case with saliva and other issues in the head are due to the side effects from Cyberknife treatment? Radiation effects at the pelvis are hard to connect with problems in the head. Did your treatment protocol include hormonal drugs?
Surely if the RT has damaged the spinal medulla the immune system could be affected and become ineffective. What is your blood count?

Over exposure to radiation can occur but it is difficult to prove. You sensations could be a psychological effect created from your fear while seeing the machine's RT delivering head moving around during treatment.

I would recommend you to get a total lipids test to try finding the reason of the effects. I hope your condition improves. You may consult a psychologist too.

Welcome to the board.

Best wishes,

VG

There are other benefits to left side sleeping:

"According to Ayurvedic medicine, sleeping on your left sideallows your body to better filter lymph fluid and waste via the lymph nodes as the left side of our body is the dominant lymphatic side. Western research has also found that sleeping on the left side can help the body process waste materials from the brain. In contrast, sleeping on your right side can decrease the lymphatic system’s efficiency".

 left side sleeping has its detractors. Those detractors don't deal with far more serious GERD symptoms.

I was not eligible for CK due to adverse pathology, however I did receive adjuvant IMRT radiation a year after my prostatectomy, and I Varian machine used for radiation is very similar to the ones used for CK.  During several of the treatments they appeared to have some trouble with the machine. It would pause for a few seconds (which seemed like minutes) before continuing and a couple times even seemed to start over.  Yes, I was concerned about it, mentioned it to the staff and they just said yes there was a problem but there are numerous safeguards built in.

Now I need to mention that the most common age for men to be diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer is in their sixties. The average is age 66.  Often by that age, there have been other medical conditions develop.  You haven't mentioned your age, but many of your symptoms do sound familiar to me.  I have had GERD for twenty years and Barrett's esophagus for ten, and now have taken PPI's (Prevacid or Nexium) EVERY DAY for over a decade.  I discovered the "left side sleeping" on my own and have had to be very careful what I eat and when.  Still, I have to get a biopsy of my esophagus every two years.

Also I've lost some teeth. I have lots of crowns and a couple of implants in my mouth, because I grew up before floridation became commonplace. Three of those crowns and one implant are new within the past six months, as was my prostate radiation. And I also have a salivary gland surgically removed and have had dry mouth problems ever since. I am saying this because at around the same age that we typically develop prostate cancer, our bodies just begin to fall apart. It's like owning a ten year old car... eventually you have to start replacing some expensive parts.

Now there is something that will in fact cause you to lose teeth and dry up your saliva and that is "whole head radiation" or direct radiation to the jaw and neck to treat Oropharyngeal Cancer. A similar machine is used to treat OPC as is used for prostate cancer. For OPC the patient must undergo seven weeks of daily radiation while wearing a restrictive mask that keeps them from moving. I believe that the only way you could have received enough radiation to cause the symptoms you have would have been for the "head" of the machine to have been directly over your head.

I'm going to agree with most of the others here that everything probably went well during your prostate treatment and that you probably have another medical problem that you need to look into. We all want to believe that everything that happens to us was caused by something, but that's not always the case. Stuff just happens.

Grinder said:

Strangely

There are other benefits to left side sleeping:

"According to Ayurvedic medicine, sleeping on your left sideallows your body to better filter lymph fluid and waste via the lymph nodes as the left side of our body is the dominant lymphatic side. Western research has also found that sleeping on the left side can help the body process waste materials from the brain. In contrast, sleeping on your right side can decrease the lymphatic system’s efficiency".

 left side sleeping has its detractors. Those detractors don't deal with far more serious GERD symptoms.

Grinder,

I have had severe GERD for 30 years now, and you are correct: Sleeping on the left is very advantageous.  By "severe" I mean that my diaphram was dislocated in a wreck, and the stomach spincter between the escophagus and stomach no longer works.  In fact, when sitting, I often produce a grunting noise, which everyone around me can clearly hear.  My GI surgeon says it is the top of my stomach rubbing in and out of the diaphram. 

Ultrasound shows that my spincter has no effect in closing the stomach -- as bad as it can get.  I require two Nexium daily, often supplemented with large doses of baking soda.  Amazingly, when I had an upper GI five years ago, it showed no erosions at all.

max